The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-09-01
RINGS IN TREES.
What Measurements of Forest
Growth Have Disclosed.

What Measurements of Forest
Growth Have Disclosed.
The Rings Declared Not a True
Test of a Trees Life.
Every day some pet theory, long held
and honestly venerated, is being demol-
ished and sent to the limbo of myth with
Tells apple, Washington's cherry tree
and other old acquaintances. Now the
age rings in trees have to suffer limboni-
zation, if the word may be allowed. Mr..
r. w. Furras an agent of the United
States Forestry Department, who has
given much attention to the age of tree
as indicated by rings, as we'll as to the
period at which trees of different species
stop growing and that at which the wood
is at its best, has reached some con-
clusions of general interest He says:
"Concentric or annual rings, which
were once accepted as good legal evil
dence, fail, except where climate, soil,
temperature, humidity and all other sur
roundings are regular and well balanced.
Otherwise, they are mere guesswork.
The only region within my knowledge
where either rings or measurements were
reliable indications are in the secluded,
even and regularly tempered valleys of
the Southern Pacific coast"
Annual measurements of white elm,
catalpa, soft maple, sycamore, pig hick-
ory, cotton wood, chestnut, box elder,
honey locust, coffee tree, burr and white
oak, black walnut, Usage orange, white
pine, red cedar, mulberry and yellow
willow (nineteen species, made in south
eastern Nebraska, show that "annual
growth is very irregular, sometimes
scarcely perceptible and again quite
large and this he attributes to the diff
ference in seasons. As trees increase in
age inner rings decrease in size, some
times almost disappearing. Diminished
rate in growth after certain age is a
rule. Of four great bceches mentioned
in London, there were three, each about
seventeen feet in girth, whose ages were
respectively go, 1902 and 200 years. Mr..
Furras found twelve rings in black
locust six years old, twenty-one rings in
shell bark hickory of twelve years, ten
rings in a pig hickory of six years,
eleven rings in a wild crabaHlo of five
years, and only twenty rings in chest
nut oak Of twenty y-four years. An Amer
ican chestnut Of only four years had
nine rings, while peach of eight years
had only five rings.
DR.. A. M. Childs, a resident of Ne
braska from 1854 to 1882, careful OBJ
server for the Smithsonian Institution,
who counted rings on some soft naples
eleven years two months old, found on
one side of the heart of one of them
forty rings, and not less than thirty i've
anywhere, which were quite distinct
when the wood was green, but after it
had been seasoned only twenty-four
rings could be distinguished. Another
expert says that all our Northern hard
woods make many rings year, some
times as many as twelve, but as the last
set of cells in years growth are very
small and the first very large, the annual
growth can always be determined, cx-
cept when from local causes there is any
particular year little OF no cell growth.
This may give large number on one
side Upon the Pacific coast of North
America trees do not reach the point
where they stop growing nearly as early
as those of the Atlantic coast. Two
hundred years is nearly the greatest age
attained on the eastern side of the con-
tinent by trees that retain their
vigor, while 500 years is the case
of several species on the Western
coast, and one writer is con-
confident that sequoia which was
measured was not less that 1876 years
| old. At Wrangel, western hemlock,
| six feet in diameter at the stump, was
| four feet in diameter 132 feet further up
the trunk and its rings showed 432 years.
! But in the old Bartram Garden, near
Philadelphia, not more than $50 years
| old, almost all the trees are on the down
| grade The Quercus Robar, England s
! pride, which at home is said to live 1000
years, has grown to full size and died in
this garden, and the foreign spruces are
following suit. Silver frs planted in
1900 arc decaying. The great differ
ence in the longevity of trees upon the
y-@stern and eastern coasts of continents
in the Northern Hemisphere seems to be
due to the wa IN, moist air carried by
strong and permanent ocean currents
from the tropics northeasterly, in both
the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, which
make .le climate both moist and equable
in high latitudes. In Sitka, as much as
100 inches of rain have fallen
in year, and the harbor is rarely frozen
enough to hinder the passage of boats.
In some winters scarcely any ice is seen.
II Lumber World.
A COnsiderate Mendicant
''How is money!" said a middle aged